


Choices We Made in Another Lifetime

by annecoulmanross



Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [2]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, M/M, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, Relationship Negotiation, Reunions, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23125984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross/pseuds/annecoulmanross
Summary: “You loved him, didn’t you?”Lady Ann Ross awakens in the afterlife and discovers that the answers to the questions she and her husband have had about the Franklin expedition might finally be within her grasp.A Prequel to “A World That Was Meant for Our Eyes to See,” probably best read after that story.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, Captain Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross, Lady Ann Ross & Commander James Fitzjames, Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross
Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653634
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	Choices We Made in Another Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

> For the Terror Bingo square “Lady Ann Ross.”

When Lady Ann Ross first awoke, she blinked her eyes at the golden light streaming through lace curtains. Unseasonably bright for January, she thought. Unseasonably warm too. And her limbs didn’t ache as they had these last few weeks; she felt almost well again. Then the door creaked quietly open and Ann looked up into the kindly face of Eleanor Anne Franklin née Porden, and Ann Ross realized what had happened. She’d spent enough years in the company of this woman’s daughter to know what seeing her long-deceased mother meant. 

So, this was it. The end. 

Except it wasn’t. 

There were people to meet, and people to meet again. Lady Franklin the First – Eleanor – led Ann gently through all of it, through the winding corridors of a grand house whose huge windows gave views of an icy sea and grand cliffs, and Ann gave handshakes and embraces to friends and long-lost relatives until she was tired beyond measure. 

Eventually, Eleanor guided her to a settee in a new room of the unending house, pressing a cup of tea into Ann’s hands. Ann looked up to give her thanks, and startled at the face of the man standing at Eleanor’s elbow. 

“Mr. Jopson?” 

The young man gave her a familiar grin, and tucked his hair behind his ear, lovely as ever.

“Yes, Lady Ross,” Jopson answered.

He looked just as he had when the Antarctic crew had returned to England in 1843, with Thomas Jopson standing tall and poised, half a step behind his captain aboard _Terror_. But there was no captain here now, only Jopson, whom Ann hadn’t seen in over ten years. The last word about Jopson Ann had heard was from that thrice-damned last letter Ross had received from Francis Crozier. 

Ann began to ask, “But then–”

Jopson nodded, his smile dimming a bit. 

In sudden realization, Ann looked toward Eleanor. “Is Sir John–?”

But Eleanor seemed contented enough. “He’s out with the ships, yes,” she explained. “Most of them are out on the water, but our Lieutenant Jopson likes to keep an eye out for new arrivals, and Captain Fitzjames should be around here somewhere.” 

Ann reeled. _To finally know!_ “Are they all here then?”

Eleanor shook her head, a bit of the melancholy upon her at last. “Ah – no. We’ve yet to see Captain Crozier.” 

Mr. Jopson – Lieutenant Jopson, Ann corrected in her head – stepped forward, his voice suddenly eager. “He was one of the last of us who was still hale and hearty, ma’am,” Jopson said. “We assumed he’d been rescued, but no news of it ever came to us. Your husband, m’am, would have found him, we thought?”

Ann’s heart sunk. She shook her head sadly, saying, “James went searching and found only stories of tragedy and a handful of buttons. No word of Captain Crozier but ‘Gone, dead and gone.’” 

Jopson’s brow furrowed, but he said nothing.

“I wish I had better news to give you,” Lady Ann added. The young man had never struck her as talkative but his silence was worrisome, and she had nothing but silence to give him on this matter, so she hurried to change the subject: “You’ve earned ‘lieutenant,’ have you then, dear Jopson?” 

Jopson nodded. “Captain Crozier wrote up the promotion himself, ma’am. In 1848.” 

“Oh, that’s excellent – my congratulations. What was the occasion?”

Jopson hesitated to reply, and he seemed to stare, unseeing, at some distant mark. “We were short of officers, m’am. We’d lost more than half of the complement of _Erebus_ and then–” But Jopson did not speak further. 

Ann bit her lip. The instinct to ask for more details of the Franklin expedition was strong, but the young man seemed likely to shiver out of his skin, the way his eyes skittered away from hers and his face stayed in a careful, unmoving mask. 

“Well,” Ann replied, carefully and slowly. “I have heard it said that when new lieutenants earned their titles in the Med – for, my husband told me, many officers take their exams on Malta – there would be a sort of little theatre festival. Eleanor, didn’t you hear the story about when Captain Fitzjames was on Malta?”

Lady Eleanor quickly caught onto the tone of Ann’s voice. With a gentle hand, Eleanor eased Jopson slowly down onto the end of the couch, and picked up the thread of the story. “Yes,” Eleanor began, “My husband told me that Captain Fitzjames had performed in a play to mark the occasion. It was something rather funny-sounding – what was it called again, Ann?” 

“Oh I can’t recall.” Ann continued, her words light. “It was long and terribly Greek. But Fitzjames played the best role, didn’t he? The queen? And he wore just the most spectacular gown, I heard. What was the queen’s name, Eleanor – do you remember? Fandillia? Fadlandia?” 

“Fadladinida.” 

That was Jopson. He had tucked his hair behind his ear again and managed a shaky smile. “Queen Fadladinida,” he confirmed. “Captain Fitzjames and Captain Crozier were talking about it one night. It sounded like the most absurd thing.” 

Eleanor grinned and turned to Jopson, “Have you heard what happens at the end?” 

“No, m’am,” Jopson replied. 

“Ah,” Ann added. “Then you’re in for a treat, because we shall tell you the story of Fad-lad-whatever-her-name-is (as we have understood it from several sources) and you will never believe us, but we shall attempt to replicate the plot as best we can.” 

Jopson smiled a little more broadly at this, and seemed to prepare himself to listen to Ann and Eleanor recounting their version of the play. As they narrated the romantic escapades of the queen and her entourage, Jopson appeared to settle back into himself, and he even smothered a laugh or two at the odd twists of the narrative. Once, when Ann laughed as well, Jopson’s eyes went briefly hollow, but Eleanor’s friendly hand to his arm and their ongoing discussion appeared to soften even this fleeting harsh memory, whatever it had been. By the time Ann retired for bed, Jopson was once more his former self, and bid her and Eleanor goodnight with a nod and a smile. 

As Lady Eleanor turned to leave as well, Ann caught her hand and said quietly, “Thank you. I would not have known how to help him without you. I certainly hadn’t intended to upset him so.”

Eleanor smiled sadly. “That dear young man has it harder than some of the others. And he takes Crozier’s absence poorly. You did well, though, to bring him back around.” 

Ann bowed her head in thanks. “Your care helped him as much as the story-telling, I think. But do you know more of what happened to him and the rest of the men who were with Franklin? I admit I am desperate to know.”

“They mislike to tell of it,” Eleanor said briefly. “We know that many things went wrong, and John tells me that they were beset by ice for more than a year by the time he himself passed on. From what I gather, some of the crew lived longer than he, but none more than a year or two. And none know what happened to Crozier – or if they know, they do not say.” 

Ann nodded, thinking. 

Eleanor continued, “Put it from your mind, my dear. This is not a place to trawl up dark thoughts and rememberings. When you see more of the men of the expedition you will have some answers, but do not pry. They are all in and out of the house; you will run into them sooner or later.” 

And yet, as she prepared for bed, Ann’s mind buzzed with questions. What _had_ happened to the men of Franklin’s expedition? Of course she would press young Jopson no further, but perhaps, if she were to meet another of Franklin’s officers, someone of old acquaintance… 

+

Despite Eleanor’s words, it was several days until Ann caught a glimpse of any of the other officers of that ill-fated expedition. There were simply too many people to greet, and Ann tired easily, now. But perhaps the third day after her arrival at the grand house on the cliffs, Ann spied a silhouette she’d seen before – a tall, slim man with long, wavy hair much like Ann’s own James. This figure stood at the front window, alone, gazing out at the ships in harbor, anchored serenely in the bay below. Ann knew that she could have gone out to the ships herself and gotten the answers she sought directly, but there seemed to be so little hurry in this place and after the conversation with Lieutenant Jopson she was hesitant to disturb any man so badly in need of a rest from their life’s sufferings. Someday Ann would know more, and someday her James would arrive, and she would comfort him and that was that. But now that one of the poor officers was here before her, Ann felt it was time to at least ask – carefully, this time. 

“Captain?” Ann inquired – Jopson had explained to her that the custom here was to use the highest station a man had obtained while alive, even if he had done so under less than ideal circumstances; this had apparently been implemented without question after someone had dared to slight Lieutenant Jopson in Fitzjames’ hearing – and when the man made no motion, Ann called out a bit louder, “Captain Fitzjames?” 

The man at the window startled and turned. “Ah, my dear Lady Ross!” Ann could tell that some cheer had come over him only in that moment that had not been present before she arrived, but she still gladdened to see James Fitzjames before her, whole and well and exuberant. Indeed, the man grinned and tossed his curls much like she remembered. 

Ann smiled. “It is good to see you, Captain. How is this place treating you?” 

Fitzjames smiled back. “I am well, my lady. It has been good to see my lost loved ones, and now and then to see new friends from old times. Tell me, when did you arrive? Are you settling in alright?”

Ann had never known Fitzjames to turn a conversation so quickly away from himself, before, but she happily told him of her arrival. 

After these initial pleasantries, Ann shifted on her feet, and Fitzjames invited her to sit down, joining her in the other of the two chairs facing the fireplace. 

Ann settled herself and turned back to Fitzjames. “And you, sir?” she began. “When did you arrive?” 

The look Fitzjames gave Ann then told her that she had not been subtle, but what Ann had known of this man in particular told her that she needn’t be, with him. After all, Fitzjames soon relented, and said, “We of the Franklin crew have been here a few years. Most as many as nine or ten years, I believe. Surely you’ve heard this story already.”

Ann shook her head. “I’ve seen few of your men, Captain. And those I have met have been – understandably – somewhat less than eager to speak of it.” 

“I am unsurprised, my lady, but have you not had the news from others? We’ve heard rumors of search parties, even – had they brought back no report?” 

“I’ve heard some news, of course,” Ann replied. “Lady Franklin – our Lady Franklin, Eleanor – has told me what she knows from her husband, and yes, there have been expeditions searching for you – my husband led one, but he found very few answers to his questions – and so I truly haven’t heard your story. If you’d like to tell it, I’d truly love to listen, but don’t put yourself to any harm, Captain. It’s not worth all that – it’s not worth causing you grief, I mean to say.”

Fitzjames looked at her differently now. His thin lips pressed together almost as though he were angry, but there was something deep and thoughtful and not angry at all in his eyes, in the care-lines of his brow and jaw. 

“If you truly wish it, then,” Fitzjames said, finally, “I will tell you what I can of what happened.” 

Fitzjames’s story was nothing like any mighty epics she had heard him tell before, at Admiralty dinners or at the Franklins’ house. Gone were the moments of grand adventure, gone were the references to Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Fitzjames began the tale with the first men to die, and his story was a slow accounting of loss, at first, such that Ann almost wept to hear it. She assumed there were things Fitzjames was keeping from her – such details he lavished over the small tragedies of illness and accident, and yet he offered no more of his own captain’s death than “an animal attack,” sparsely described and hurriedly recounted. Other scenes also rang false to her – the image of Francis Crozier, suddenly sick with a mysterious ailment; the depiction of a tragic, accidental fire caused by some unknown sailor who had clumsily knocked over a torch at a carnival. Ann tucked these thoughts away – filed them under the notion of fictions, perhaps to be picked apart later. But it was at this point, after the fire, that Fitzjames’ tone changed. Terrible though the circumstances continued to be, there was a true warmth in the man’s voice as he described a growing intimacy with Crozier, now miraculously healed, and as tender as Ann had remembered him. The care that Fitzjames wove into Crozier’s every small act of courage brightened up his words and gilded them, filling them with some of the glory of his old tale-telling, though Fitzjames himself seemed almost unconscious of it. His stories were all for the golden light of the place, barren though it was, and the great deeds of the men, and of Francis. Even as Fitzjames’s own end hovered on the horizon, he carried at least so much gleaming pride in his recollection that the words were not bitter. 

“At this point,” Fitzjames was saying, “my wound had reopened – my lady, I do apologize for the bluntness, but I trust that you appreciate honesty, and I know no other words –”

Ann nodded. 

“–and perhaps you remember that I had a wound from China?”

Ann nodded once more. The story was ever so vivid.

“Well, one of the maladies that haunted us could summon back long-dead wounds, and so it was for me. I’ll spare you – and myself – more detail, but it was the Chinese sniper that finally got me. Francis– Captain Crozier, he was with me, at the end. I could not have wished for a better man to have, there, beside me. I thought that I would have more time, but I was ready, in that moment. Lo– having him there made me ready.” 

Fitzjames paused, and looked as though he had woken from a dream. The gilding dropped out of his voice, then, but he was not so rattled as Ann feared, as he concluded his tale. “And then I found my way here, I suppose,” Fitzjames said. “I am given to understand that it was 1848 when that happened. I know only fragments of what happened after, mainly from Dundy.” 

Ann met Fitzjames’ glance and tried to show some of her gratitude and her grief with her eyes. 

“I am sorry,” Ann said, “that you did not have more time. To think that you were gone barely three years after we saw you last grieves me, and it will be a pain to my husband when he hears of it. He missed you all by a very close margin, I think, if he set sail the very year you passed on.”

Fitzjames nodded. “Even if he had sailed early that season it would not have been enough.” 

“So then even the first of the expeditions sent to your rescue would have been too late, for all of you?” Ann mused. 

“No one could have saved us, my lady. If anyone could have done it, it would have been Captain Crozier alone. That he did not succeed is no mark against his character, and any who would say otherwise is a fool, and worse, uncaring of the horrors we faced. Why Captain Crozier is not here I do not know – perhaps he yet lives, though I don’t know why no one has ever heard word from him. Perhaps he is somewhere better than here – for this place does not have enough of heaven to deserve him, I think.”

Fitzjames was flushed with fierceness, though Ann had not meant any insult. Ann considered his face, so fervently impassioned with his defense of Francis Crozier, and it finally occurred to her. 

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

At that Fitzjames’ eyes went wide and shocked, and then the man crumpled, his head bowed, the whole long line of his body rippling like water, revealing the shadowed depths fathoms below. 

Ann stood in silence for a long time, unsure what sentiments to offer at this wordless revelation. 

Eventually, Fitzjames raised his eyes again, though he still looked off into the distance and would not meet Ann’s gaze. “My dear lady, you are too insightful. I doubt even a spy could hold secrets from you for long.” His voice was despondent. 

Ann shifted slightly closer to Fitzjames than propriety really allowed – they were beyond such things, weren’t they? – and laid a gentle hand on his arm. “Do not grieve, Captain. He will come here in his own time, and I must imagine he will be as dear and kind to us now as he was in life.” 

Fitzjames held her glance now, and looked shocked. “How can–” Fitzjames shook his head, disbelieving. “How can you say such things? As though I have not just shown my hand, as it were.” 

Ann smiled a bit sadly and replied, “It’s no care to me what you think of Captain Crozier, save that he is a dear man, and good to me and my husband, and I would rather he be loved than not. In whatever way as may be.” Ann looked more closely at Fitzjames. He seemed like a man who had not gotten used to going about without a mask, uncomfortable in his nakedness. “You are not as well as you seem, are you, Captain? Better than one might expect given what you endured, but there is something of Francis’s loneliness about you.”

Fitzjames nodded. 

“You are waiting for him?” Ann asked quietly. 

Fitzjames nodded, more slowly, as if just then realizing it himself. 

+

After that, Lady Ann took care to find Fitzjames often, and they found a great comfort in sitting and talking of little things. Fitzjames had been deeply amused to hear of Lady Ann recounting the third-hand tale of his Maltese theatrical history to poor Jopson, and he gave her more details “to enrich the telling – for next time.”

Most often they would not mention Franklin’s expedition, but occasionally Fitzjames would offer a story of Crozier, and Ann treasured these – at first for her husband, and eventually for herself, as she pieced together the true story of how Francis had suffered uniquely on this last voyage. She had known from her own James of Crozier’s overindulgence with drink, but she did not think even her husband knew how bad it had become, that Crozier had been in such great danger while drying out under Jopson’s care on _Terror_. 

Fitzjames told her also of Francis’s care for his men, of which Ann knew well, and Francis’s particular sense of humor when alone with Fitzjames, of which Ann knew little. Ann thought back on the forthright man she had known as Francis Crozier, and wondered where he was now, and thought of her dear husband James, and mused on what the two would think to know that she sat so often with Fitzjames, whom she had only ever known in life as one of those brash young men with too much taste for battle and too little scientific training, of whom Francis had often grumbled. Ann hoped her James and Francis were happy. Ann knew that they likely weren’t. 

So she spoke with Fitzjames and she learned and she waited. It was all she could do. 

+

“I was on _Clio_ ,” Fitzjames told her when she asked. Where it was that he awoke, that is. 

They had talked about nearly everything else; it was a bit impolite to ask, but they were at the end of politeness, now. 

“I was all alone,” Fitzjames added, “but the sun was there, and it was warm, and I knew it was heaven.”

Now, he seemed less sure that he was in heaven, Ann thought. Though Fitzjames obviously had his joys: sailing on the strange new seas (mainly on _Clio_ , with Lieutenant Le Vesconte, she noted), and sketching, and socializing; he was more subdued than she remembered, but only a little. His old exuberance returned when he was with the Coninghams, his family, who visited often and so clearly loved him and cherished him and called him “son,” here, which shocked some who knew him in life, but Fitzjames’ excitement at these times felt unforced. 

And yet Ann could tell he was waiting, always waiting. 

“Francis told me we were at the end of vanity, once,” Fitzjames admitted. “And I thought he knew some deep truth about the world, that he could see something I couldn’t. But there is vanity here too. I’ve only exchanged one mask for another: I may stop hiding my birth but not my feelings – my love. I must keep it wrapped under that beloved slant-name ‘brotherhood.’ I don’t even know that he would wish for more than brotherhood, and even if he did I wouldn’t dare name it.”

One time, before, in that other lifetime, Ann had seen Crozier with Ross in the parlor room of their townhouse – hers and James’s – after some Admiralty dinner that Ann herself had begged off attending, so Ross had dragged Crozier instead. When they returned home, both men stumbling and flushed, they had made quite a racket on their way into the townhouse, so Ann had come down to check on them. When she had peered into the parlor, her dear James had been in Crozier’s arms, as though for a waltz; though the two were of a height, Crozier’s solid strength made Ann’s husband look almost dainty, with his gloved hand on Crozier’s shoulder. The two had been speaking, too soft for Ann to catch more than a few words – “ships” and “so cold” and “that dress” and “James dear.” They had swayed in each other’s grasp, in a late-night mockery of a dance, and for a few minutes, James had rested his head on Francis’s broad shoulder. Soon enough, however, James had been blinking sleepily, and Crozier began ushering him toward to door, so Ann snuck back to the bedchamber, and almost didn’t have to pretend to be asleep by the time James joined her, stroking a soft hand over her arm. 

When she told Fitzjames all this, now, he asked “Were they–” but did not finish; he did not need to. 

Ann shook her head. “I do not think so,” she considered. “But I think – perhaps – they would have wished to, in another lifetime. James always rushed to reassure me that he would never love another, though I never worried he would, not even when Sophia made her play for him.”

Fitzjames sighed. “I think you are very lucky, my lady.” 

Ann struggled to find the words. She was lucky, she knew, but in this moment, it felt like neither Fitzjames nor her own James had truly understood. She’d never have wanted Crozier for herself alone, but she _did_ want him for James. Both her James _and_ this one, seated the chair beside hers. 

Ann confessed quietly, “I would – I would share.”

Fitzjames barked out a laugh. “God,” he says. “Like I wouldn’t? A moment of his time – I’d rather have it than not. A fair world would give him Sophia – would give him Sophia and your husband both – and yet – and yet I’d hope a fair world would give him to me. I’m not sure there can be such a thing as a fair world anymore. Not for you or for me.” 

Ann shook her head. “I don’t mean it grudgingly. If it would make my husband happy, it would make me happy.” 

Fitzjames curved his lips in a wistful image of a smile. “I’m not sure I have your faith, my dear, but I aspire to it. I want to imagine him happy. I hope that, should he come here, this would be a place where that could happen.” 

“Maybe this is a place where we are meant to share,” Ann mused. “It seems to me that both you and Francis had a scarcity of love in your lifetime; perhaps here you might be allowed to have a surfeit of it?” 

Fitzjames seemed to consider this. “I’m not so convinced that this is meant to be heaven as you are, perhaps,” Fitzjames admitted, quietly. “But if it is, then yes, that is what I might desire from the best of all possible worlds.”

Fitzjames laughed to himself, then, and marveled, “A surfeit of love. What a thing to have.” 

+

One morning, Jopson came hurtling into the house from the ships. 

Jopson had taken to spending more time out on the ice after Lady Ross had arrived. Ann didn’t think the lieutenant was avoiding her – he’d always been unfailingly kind, and quick with a smile when they did meet, nowadays. But she had learned from Fitzjames that the men of _Terror_ and _Erebus_ had a kind of superstition about them, that the reason so many of them had awoken out on the ice – or in the boats themselves – was because the ice and the cold had been in their souls when they died, and it steered the paths of their spirits. When Jopson had heard from Lady Ann’s own lips that the there was no news of Crozier being rescued, Jopson seemed to resign himself to haunting the boats, as though Ann’s lack of news had confirmed Crozier’s fate. Those who awoke on the ice were often disoriented to start, Ann had been told, and fearful and disbelieving. It wasn’t hard to imagine that such a thing would be less pleasant a passage than being born again in this comforting, stately house with its golden light and quiet chatter of friends and loved ones. 

When Jopson burst through the front door shouting, “It’s Crozier – he’s here!” Ann realized that the lieutenant had been right to look for his captain out on the ice. 

Although several people in the house straightened up in interest at Jopson’s announcement, none stood as if to follow – hurry was foreign here, for most people at most times. But hurry was familiar for Ann in that moment: her heart raced, and she strode up to Jopson. 

“It’s him?” she asked. 

Jopson nodded, breathing heavily. “He was at the shore, down by the island. He’s with Thomas Blanky now–”

“And he’s alright?” 

“I think so.” 

Ann nodded. How one would judge these things was beyond her as well. “Let me find Fitzjames,” she said. “Then, take us to him?”

Jopson agreed, and Ann turned back into the parlor, searching. No luck – she hurried deeper into the house. 

As she spun around the corner into one of the long dining rooms, she ran into Lady Eleanor. “Fitzjames?” Ann gasped. 

Eleanor, seeing the look on her face, merely pointed down the hallway behind her with a soft smile. Ann pressed her hand and raced on. 

At the end of the corridor was a small library, and sure enough, Fitzjames was seated at a writing desk in the corner. Ann pulled up sharp at the door and called out “James!” 

When Fitzjames turned, he caught the light in her eyes and rose quickly. “Is it–?”

“Jopson says so, yes.” 

They rushed together back to the front door, where Jopson was waiting impatiently. As soon as they had pulled on cloaks and coats, Jopson whisked them out onto the doorstop, and down the steep path toward a small harbor, sheltered by the cliff and by a rocky island. 

Ann had been down by the large quay on the grand harbor at the base of the cliffs, since most of the ships embarked from there, and often enough Eleanor and Sir John had taken her sailing on _Erebus_ from there, or Fitzjames had invited her onto _Clio_. But Ann had never yet been down to the smaller dock, where the faster and slimmer boats came into harbor. 

Jopson swiftly led them past the view of the house, and down toward the water. A quick turn, and Ann stumbled on the stones of the path. Though she righted herself neatly, Ann saw that Fitzjames had reached out a hand to help her; she looked up to Fitzjames and smiled, before taking his hand anyway. They followed Jopson as best they could, on toward the place where the small harbor lay, and separated as they emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. 

They turned a last corner of the rocky wall, and Ann saw that a single ship was anchored beside the dock, Thomas Blanky’s beautiful little steamer _Icebear_. And on deck Blanky stood, facing them, conversing with a man dressed in Inuit furs. When Blanky caught sight of their little party, he gave a shout, and the man with him turned around. 

_Finally_. 

It was certainly Francis. He was dressed for the Arctic, but he looked more as Ann had known him when she had first met him and Ross. He seemed younger – her own age, or Fitzjames’s – and though it was hard to be certain across such a distance, he seemed to carry himself with an energetic spirit. Even from the shore, Ann could see as he quickly embraced Blanky, then slid gracefully down from the steamer’s deck to the pier below. 

Ann glanced at Fitzjames beside her, who stood frozen in place, as though the wooden planks of the pier before him might crumble under his feet. He had eyes only for Francis, approaching now at a good clip. 

So Ann looked across to Jopson, who nodded, grinning, and the two of them pulled Fitzjames forward onto the pier. 

They all came upon him at once, halfway between the ship and the shore. 

Francis seemed hardly to know what to do with himself, between the three of them arrayed before him. His eyes glowed with happiness, and though he looked somewhat weary up close, Ann had been right to think that he looked younger. His eyes had dark circles of sleeplessness, but fewer lines of worry. 

Francis reached out a hand to clasp Jopson’s shoulder, first, calming the young man who had only just slowed himself. Francis looked to Jopson tenderly and smiled, confirming some past reassurance that had already been uttered, before Jopson stepped aside, back to his comfortable station at the captain’s side. 

Then Francis faced Fitzjames. There was only the barest suggestion of a smile on his lips, but his eyes were graced with a tenderness that hurt to look at, as he gazed up at Fitzjames who was, of course, frozen once more. 

Fitzjames could hardly speak. “Francis,” was all he said before the man took pity on him, reaching up to steady Fitzjames with a hand to his arm and a warm embrace. Fitzjames collapsed against him with a sob, burying his proud head in Francis’s neck. They stood thus for several moments, and then Fitzjames gathered himself and pulled away. Tears had gathered in his eyes, and he choked out wordless reassurances and lifted his hands placatingly as he smiled through his tears, still looking to Francis. Though a bit concerned, Francis smiled back helplessly, and surrendered one of his hands to Fitzjames’s care, when it was apparent to all involved that the two men could not part completely. 

At last, Francis turned to Ann, who smiled, and clasped Francis’s free hand. “You’ve been missed, dear friend.” 

Francis looked at her, astonishment dawning as the realization of her presence here hit him at last. “I hadn’t thought – I’m so sorry, Ann. I had no idea you would be here ahead of me. Are you alright?” 

Ann almost laughed before she caught herself. “Yes, captain,” she replied. “I very much am. It’s so good to see you.” 

“Is James here? Oh god.”

Ann shook her head. “No, no he’s not yet.” 

They stood in silence. The phrase _We’ve left him behind_ echoed between them, unspoken but not unheard. 

Eventually, Ann stepped close, and pressed a single kiss to Francis’s cheek. “That’s from him. Until he gets here, at least, it’ll have to do.” 

Francis nodded, his lips parted in sorrow but still silent. 

Ann looked up to Fitzjames, who still stood with Francis’s free hand between both of his own. He was stroking his thumb over the back of Francis’s hand apparently unconsciously, and his eyes darted between the two of them, the emotion in his glance unreadable. Ann caught his gaze and nodded her head toward Francis, the work of mere seconds, but Fitzjames startled, and then titled his head, questioning. 

Ann nodded encouragingly to him, marveling at how they had come to read each other in the last few years. 

And so Fitzjames leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Francis’s cheek, just as Ann had, on the other side. 

When Fitzjames straightened up, Francis followed the motion with his eyes, wonder and joy clear for all to see. He slowly lifted their clasped hands to his lips, and brushed Fitzjames’s knuckles with his mouth in a caress that felt far too intimate for Ann’s sight. She almost looked away, but Fitzjames glanced at her and then away, cheeks reddening with a blush as he focused on Francis but a familiar smile still on his face, so Ann stayed where she was, and looked, and looked, and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from “In Another Lifetime” by Zoe Sky Jordan, from [this lovely rossier playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lDhAbCPmaNgIl9sW1Dfte?si=rrd4XSlBRSCRUKbo7JXW0g). The timeline here begins when Lady Ann Ross passes away at the age of 40, on the 25th of January, 1857, and runs through Crozier’s death sometime around 1860.
> 
> Eleanor Anne Franklin née Porden (1795–1825) was the first wife of Sir John Franklin, and mother of his daughter, also named Eleanor. Eleanor the Elder wrote poetry, including [a long poem about the Arctic](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Arctic_expeditions_a_poem.html?id=aUkVAAAAQAAJ)! (She actually had it in writing that she be permitted to continue writing poetry even after marrying Franklin – it was a stipulation of her acceptance of Franklin’s offer of marriage. In this house we stan Lady Franklin the First.) 
> 
> Ann Ross mentions the “last letter Ross received from Francis,” which I also used in my previous fic for this universe; [you can read it here](https://canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/archive/text/CrozierRoss_en.htm). This letter includes a sentence Crozier wrote that is transcribed as, “I am generally busy but it is after all a very hermit like life – Except to kick up a row with the helmsman or abuse Totson[?] at times…” I think we can all agree that the transcription’s “Totson[?]” is almost certainly Jopson, as one of the few men of the Franklin expedition whom Crozier (and indeed Ross) would have known well enough to tease, since Jopson had known the both of them from the Antarctic expedition of 1839-1843. 
> 
> The terrible play that Eleanor and Ann describe to Jopson is _Chrononhotonthologos, The Most Tragical Tragedy That Ever was Tragedized by Any Company of Tragedians_ (1734), and Fitzjames really did act in a production of it on Malta, as Fadladinida, Queen of Queerummania. History is a gift. [You can read the script here](http://www.chrononhotonthologos.com/script.htm). (Note, this performance took place after the death of Eleanor Anne Franklin in 1825; Eleanor has heard the story – told imperfectly – from Sir John _after_ they’ve both died.)


End file.
